Robert Charest

Peppercorn Cafe Robert Charest

Peppercorn Cafe is a semi autobiographical romantic literary fantasy set in the restaurant world of Manhattan. Over the years I have experienced many bizarre coincidences and seemingly impossible encounters with friends, acquaintances and strangers in far flung places. As I repeated these stories to others, sometimes in my role as a bartender, the response actually became predictable: "I hope you're writing this stuff down." I was, and accordingly I had accumulated a sizable collection of autobiographical writings. My mother taught me the restaurant business as a teenager, and after college I used those skills to explore the country. I learned the business in my home state of Connecticut, but have also lived and worked in restaurants in New Hampshire, Florida, Texas, Louisiana and the setting of this tale, Manhattan, where I was employed at the now defunct midtown location of the Jekyll and Hyde Club. Anyone familiar with the business will tell you that strange and comical things can happen at any given moment, and over the years I had also amassed a collection of weird and wacky restaurant stories. One day I was inspired to combine the two collections of writings and Peppercorn Cafe was born--a weaving of straight autobiography with pure fiction resulting in a novel of rejection, revenge and romance set in a Manhattan restaurant.